The present invention relates to an on-line automatic transaction network, and more particularly to a commodity information transmission system therefor.
An on-line automatic transaction network with which goods such as recorded video tapes (hereinbelow, simply termed "video tapes") can be rented, sold and returned by the use of credit cards, has been known from, for example, the official gazette of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 6549/1983. In each of the terminal transaction devices of such an on-line automatic transaction network for video tapes, about 200 video tapes are usually kept in custody. Moreover, the recorded video tapes include many titles, and there are two types of standards for the video tapes. Accordingly, the sorts of video tapes to be handled are as large in number as several tens.
Meanwhile, contents recorded on the video tapes are classified into several fields such as amusement, culture and famous movies. Assuming by way of example that the volume of dealings in business quarters be at proportions of 5, 3 and 2 in the order of the aforementioned fields, it is conjectured to become proportions of 2, 3 and 5 in a residential district. Also, the ratio between rent and sale is conjectured to differ. Since, in this manner, the situations of transactions differ depending upon the installed places of the terminal transaction devices, each terminal should preferably keep commodities in conformity with the possibility of transactions in the installed place thereof.
Moreover, in the on-line automatic transaction network, an administration center controls commodities and disposes of transactions. Therefore, the stocked states of commodities in the individual automatic transaction devices need to be stored in the administration center or the automatic transaction devices at all times. To this end, each time a service man has placed video tapes into the terminal transaction device, he must input data as to which video tapes have been placed on respective custodial shelves.
However, it is a laborious job for the service man of the terminal transaction device that the data items on as many shelves of the device as 200 are input on each occasion. Besides, it is inevitable to err.
Incidentally, conventional vending machines are chiefly directed to scant kind and mass sales, so that the kinds of commodities are of only, at most, ten odd. Moreover, it suffices to grasp the total stocks of the respective kinds of commodities in an administration center, and it is unnecessary to grasp the commodities in custody in association with corresponding shelves, in the center.
In order to realize on-line transactions in such a way that a large number of commodities of many sorts, e.g., video tapes, are stored in terms of commodity patterns corresponding to the installed places of terminal transaction devices and that the commodity patterns are concentratively controlled in an administration center, it is required that, as to the respective shelves of the individual terminal transaction devices, the titles, standards etc. of the video tapes kept thereon be stored as transaction administering information in the center.
It is sometimes required that, also in the terminal transaction device, the contents of the commodities kept on the respective shelves be stored for the purpose of administering the transactions of the device itself.